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The Water Mafia & Our DWP

There’s a headline story today about some Afghan entrepreneurswho are hijacking public water, loading it on trucks and selling it to the poor. These crooks, with the help and blessings of corrupt officials, are called “The Water Mafia.” There’s another headline story today about Mayor Villaraigosa and David Freeman, of the DWP, trying to raise our water and power bills from 8% to 28%. This is to help us go green. It’s working, I’m turning green.

Democracy depends on the consent of the governed to work. We have to believe in the efficacy and honesty of those who make and apply the rules. We have to submit willingly, and not simply out of fear, for democracy to exist and persist.

When the stealing and corruption become too great, when the mendacity becomes too egregious, when our sense of justice is eroded–we rebel. The good folks of California revolted years ago and passed Prop. 13, the Jarvis Initiative, because they were being taxed on the appraisals of their homes and not realized profits. They (we) may revolt again, and I suspect that the results again will not be pretty.

This time in Los Angeles the presenting issue will be water & power. Too many people are already feeling hosed and powerless and are mad as hell. This rate increase will be resisted for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that this pairs in our minds so naturally with the rate increases for health insurance. It feels ill timed and extortionate.

It also comes when the DWP is involved in a scheme to change out our water meters for “smart meters,” a hundreds of millions of dollars boondoggle that will only give them more information in order to do more bad things to us–and won’t actually save a gallon or kilowatt.

We have today a system so complicated that most of us who try to study and understand our DWP bills are left puzzled. Taxes, special fees and assessments for things having nothing to do with water and power clutter our bills. A tiered system of charges brings tears to our eyes, pain to our heads and an ache to our wallets. We have invented a system that institutionalizes unfairness and punishes those who were responsible too soon.

Let me give you an example. My tiers of charges, what I’m “allowed” at the lowest price is based on my past usage. Naturally my second tier comes into play when I exceed the DWPs allowance, which is less than my previous average because they want to encourage me to save. Thus, if I have been careful and responsible in the past, if I put in low-flow showerheads too soon, if I switched to drought resistant plants too early, if I installed a solar pool heater as well as solar hot water tank, I am still required to cut back further or be punished by second tier pricing or even the punishing third tier charges. My next door neighbor, who may have been profligate in his use of water and power, who watered his expansive lawn every day and night, who didn’t cover his pool and let evaporation run its course, who has never had a solar heater, gets a bigger allowance in his first tier than I. Now again, based on my allowances, I’m going to be raised from 8% to 28%?

Some of us have been checking the box for green energy for years–and we will be rewarded by demands for further cuts and higher rates?! Mr. Mayor, Mr. Freeman you are in danger of losing our consent–as we see our selves not as the governed but as the exploited.

If I were to stop paying my bill, you could cut me off with impunity. If hundred of thousands withdrew our consent and went on a ratepayer strike, then what? If a petition to recall the mayor went around, I’d sign it. This is tone deaf and abusive. And, by the way, has anyone done an environmental impact study on the trade off of under-watered hills and fall fires, as well as bare dry hillsides denuded of plants and winter mud slides?

I really sohuldn’t be sharing any of this. There is, after all, the water mafia.